Keith (solo) at Costa Mesa -- 22March2008

Interesting night. When I got there, there was (almost) nothing but men, sitting and reading or working on computers. I thought, "This is gonna be a tough one", but almost right away, a few guys were pretty impressed, and started paying attention and requesting songs. It's always gratifying to manage to break people out of what they came there to do (read and drink coffee) and get them into the music.

After a while, another guy came in, alone. He *really* liked me. He was, right away, clapping loudly and telling me "That was *excellent*!" and stuff like that, after every song. Wow -- pretty cool. Except...

There was a table next to him with 4 guys having a (pretty loud) Smarter-Than-Thou, Bible argument/discussion. I was just ignoring the frequent outbursts and loud talking, but Mr. Fan wasn't having it. He started off with some loud shushing, and when that didn't work, started in with, "Hey! There's a guy trying to *play* up here!" The Bible Guys, to their credit, ignored him for quite a while, but finally gave up and left.

Then he started in with the same treatment on the two ladies at the next table over who were studying for their Real Estate license exams. I don't know why they had to do it quite so loudly, but Mr. Fan launched into them, too. I kept trying to tell him "Oh, it's OK, I've had worse" and "I'm used to it" kinds of stuff, but he wanted "these people" to "show some respect!". Problem was, he wasn't doing me any favors -- it was mortifying to me for him to be making such a fuss.

The other problem with having a superfan is that he was monopolizing the setlist. He'd be yelling out his next request before the previous song's last chord had died out -- leaving no opportunity for anyone else to make a request, or for me to play one of the newer songs that aren't on the list yet. I had to stall him off a few times and specifically ask other people if they had something they wanted to hear.

Like the little group of "punks" that came in. The pink-haired girl with the dual-pierced lower lip and huge chest tattoo wanted to hear that punk classic, "Rainbow Connection", and then "Puff, the Magic Dragon". That was the Sex Pistols, right? Or was it Black Flag?